We all love exploring open worlds and there are many different games that allow us to do so. Tower of Aghasba is one of these games but unfortunately it falls flat in execution. Tower of Aghasba is an open world survival game where you explore the island of your ancestors and try to win the favor of the forest spirits. This game does have a passable story but the major issues are the gameplay, character designs, animations and the graphics. 

As soon as you start the game you go through a basic tutorial to get used to the controls. The control feels stiff and the camera tends to fight with you, when you are trying to look around. The jump feels and works good but the button layout is not optimal and doesn’t help the game play. Your first mission is to explore the wreckage of the ship to find an ancient pendant passed down through generations of your people. You are then introduced to the rest of your tribe as you build a new village to start your lives on the island. The game runs on a mission basis, where you are given tasks to collect materials to craft buildings and plants to build up your village. You will have to forage and plant different plants to gain the materials necessary in order to complete your tasks.

In order to build or plant anything you have to find an appropriate spot. Most times it has to be a flat surface or a specific type of biome. However, it’s not very clear if you are even in the correct area that can support the plant you are trying to grow, especially when you gain access to multiple biomes that are close together. Then the gameplay gets repetitive as when you’re able to plant, you have to wait for the plant to bear either fruit or seeds needed for crafting or for the mission and it can take a long time, especially if you need multiple fruits and have to wait for the plant to produce more. The menus are hard to navigate, to the point where I can’t find a specific item I need to use because there’s so many pockets. As i’m trying to navigate the menu, i try to get a fruit to feed the creature to get dung for a tree i’m trying to plant, I end up going to a different menu because the button i think is for navigating the menu actually opens the map so it becomes an hassle and makes me not enjoy the game.

When it comes to the animations they feel unfinished and contain many glitches. When your character is running the animation is stiff and doesn’t seem that you are even running at all. Most of the characters aren’t very expressive, which makes them seem robotic and not like actual people. The forest spirits while having good designs, their animations are basic and only look like they flail around, and don’t feel alive. I don’t get the feeling that these people are alive and are just there to give you a mission or some backstory.

Another issue is the cutscenes that happen during game play. During one of the opening cutscenes, when you are introduced to an animal that you can feed to get dung for plants, the creature walked over the character and started to glitch out. I’m sure the creature was supposed to walk around the character, or walk to him and stand next to him but it didn’t work out like it was supposed to. While I can enjoy a cutscene glitching out and even laugh at it, this happens too often and shows the animations needed more time before the game was finished.

While exploring you will be attacked by some creature so you will have to craft some tools to defend yourself. You can make axes, blades, and other things to survive but the combat isn’t fun. When you swing your weapon, the attack feels too slow and I don’t feel like it even hitting the enemy. Combat is not fun and makes me not want to even fight in the game, which is hard since you need to kill enemies in order to get certain materials for crafting.

In conclusion, Tower of Aghasba is a game that needs more time in development in order to at least become a playable game. While this game is still technically being worked on, it should have been more fine tuned before it was released in this way. I can see potential in this game but with stiff gameplay, unfinished animations and confusing controls, it isn’t ready to be released.

Score: 4 out of 10

Reviewed on PlayStation 5